Nature and the Human Race - Page Text Content

1: Spirit Animal | "...they must treat its (the koala's) body with respect. If they don not, there is a danger the water in the land will dry..." -From a story told by Australian aborigines

2: "What would happen to that anual 1.1 billion dollar income and those 9000 jobs if the koala was to become extinct?" - Debroah Tabart | Intrinsic Value vs. Utility

3: "...most now prefer to wear dark brown, matching the leaves of heather, so that, while lying among it in the day-time, they may not be revealed by a sight of their clothing." Nicholas d'Afreville | Intrinsic Vs. Utility value

4: "A place with two or perhaps even three natural features all providing significant alignments would be very much rarer, ans so more holy." -Henry Lincoln | Sacred Greek Groves

5: Sacred Sites | "On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And through the field the road runs by To many-tower'd Camalot" -Tennyson's Lady of Shallot

6: "Old noted oak! I saw thee in a mood of vague indifference; and yet with me thy memory, like they fate, hath lingering stood for years, thou hermit, in the lonely sea of grass that waves around thee!" -John Clare

7: "If only they had fire." said Prometheus to himself, "they could at least warm themselves and cook their food... Without fire, they are worse off than the beasts." -From the Myth of Promethus | The Role of the Elements and Fire in Myth

8: Fire Spirits: The Salamander | "Further, we are by Pliny told This serpent is extremely cold: So cold that, put it in the fire, 'Twill make the very flames expire" -Pliny the Elder

9: Air Spirits: Fairies | "When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, that was the beginning of fairies." -James Matthew Barrie (Peter Pan Act II)

10: Watter Spirits: Nymphs | "They hide in the brook when I seek to draw nearer, Laughing amain when I feign to depart; Often I hear them, now faint and now clearer- Innocent bold or so sweetly discreet." -Ellis Parker Butler

11: Earth Spirits: Gnomes | " Put on their armor, and anon, In panoply of clouds warpt round, Their for,s from sight are gone." -Jame Montgomery, The Alps

12: Doctrine of Signatures

13: The Wheel of the Seasons | The Wheel of Life

14: Plato and Aristotle's View on Nature | "Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures." -Plato

15: "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous." Aristotle, Parts of Animals

16: "... The individual life is good when it is in harmony with nature. In one sense, every life is in harmony with Nature, since it is such as nature's laws have caused it to be..." -Zeno of Citium | The Stoic View of Nature

17: Aesop's Fables | The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass | Happy is the man who learns from others mistakes.

18: Virgil's Georgics | "Those that lift their head, into the realms of light spontaneously, Fuitless indeed, but blithe and strenuous spring, Since nature lurks within the soil." -Virgil's Geogics

19: Pliny's Natural History | "Nature has asserted her majestic sway; for how much more numerous are the good and estimable characters which she has produced!" -Pliny's Natural History Book 18

20: Physiologus | "Now will i spur again my wit, and use Poetic skill to weave words into song, Telling of one among the race of fish, The great asp-turtle. Men who sail the sea Often unwillingly encounter him, Dread pareyer on mankind. His name we know, The ocean-swimmer, Fastiocalon."

21: The Green Man

22: The Green Knight

23: "Yet he had on no haberk, nor a helmet for his head, neither neck-guard nor breastplate to break heavy blows, neither shaft nor shield for the shock of combat. But he held in one hand a sprig of holly that burst out greenest when branches are bare." -From Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

24: Animal Imagery in Medival Hearaldry | The Griffin

25: "But then the barking of dogs fills the air, and the host of wild souls sweeps down, fire flashing from the eyes of the black hounds and the hooves of the black horses" Kveldulf Hagen Gundarsson (Mountain Thunder) | Herne The Wild Huntsman

26: Some lost legs, and some lost arms, And some did lose their blood, But Robin Hood he took up his noble bow, And is gone to the merry green wood. -The Adventures of Robin Hood | Robin Hood

27: "The noblest pressed forward with many attendants, Gathered together the fattest of the deer, And neatly dismembered them as ritual requires." -Sir Gwain and the Green Knight

28: Contemporary Hunting Image

29: The fountain- Symbolic of narcisim. The Peach Tree- Symbolic of virtue of heart and language. The Closed Gate- Symbolic of virginity.

30: "Sprang up the grass, as thicke yset, And softe as any veluet, On which men myght his lemman lye, As on a fetherbed, to plye." -Guillaume de Lorris Roman de la Rose | Medieval Gardens

31: Medieval Zoos

32: "I sighed, I must confess, for the skies of Italy, which I beheld rather with my mind than with my eyes. An inexpressible longing came over me to see once more my friend and my country." -Petrarch